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Friday: Day 10
We started off the day with takeaways from our visit yesterday. Adidas veteran, Thomas Hartings, gave us some great insight on the design process. He mentioned that his favorite design directors were ones that always stayed positive and put their teams needs before their own. We discussed how important those qualities are in any leader and how we can all practice them within our own teams. Hartings also mentioned that he was lucky enough to be the sample shoe size and was able to personally wear test all his projects. D’Wayne mentioned in the industry there’s always one guy on the design team that happens to be the sample size and everyone would try to step on their shoes and mess them up out of jealousy. That was a perfectly timed reminder how important it is to test your product. We are about to start mocking up our designs today. One of the other big takeaways was about his experience visiting the Adidas factories. Hartings was impressed with the craftsmanship and speed of the line workers. Getting to see his designs brought to life in person made him realize how important it is to be mindful of the people making your shoe and their work flow.
The quote of the day was: “The only correct actions are those that demand no explanation and no apology.” The translation = do what you’re supposed to do. If you get the job done and deliver what you promised you won’t have to apologize for anything.
A few of the color designers from Adidas came in to talk to our Material design team. They gave some great feedback and discussed how important it is to keep materials in mind while you’re designing.
Suzette Henri sat with each of the teams for a preliminary materials meeting Tuan making revisions on his color and materials story Jaime making some preliminary mock ups for his lifestyle basketball shoe Robert working on his performance running shoe Victoria pulling material finishes to share with her designers Brandon working on a tape-up
